Kramer, what the hell did you do?

It’s been a productive weekend. I’m starting to feel like myself, again. I’m getting good at identifying my mistakes. Unfortunately, I struggle to refrain from brainstorming new ideas to correct each mistake, as I discover them. I decided to eliminate the need to wait, and just let my mind wander. It stressed me out a bit at first, because it felt chaotic to abandon my plan. After I found my rhythm, the stress vanished. Plus ten (points) for being nice to myself. Yay. I’m making a comeback. Next month is going to be awesome. I revamped my schedule, and tomorrow I test it. I’m excited. It’s anxiety, but with a good attitude.

I discovered a grey hair where grey hair shouldn’t exist. It made me laugh, because my brain cut to a scene from a Will and Grace episode, starring Seth Green, where he loudly proclaimed ownership of three grey pubes, sealing the legitimacy of his adulthood. My brain is a lot like Youtube, sometimes, (including the overtly immature commentary). I used to laugh out loud often, at things that were only playing in my head. This didn’t go over well in the Army, where I was quickly disabused of this habit.

Now, I laugh on the inside when funny thoughts occur. I laughed on the inside while doing pushups for laughing on the outside. Giving people nicknames was a big thing when I served. I had a few over the years. In basic training, I was Private Why? and Private Top Bunk Sir. The former because it took a lot of convincing before I understood why I shouldn’t ask why. The latter, because I got so nervous during our first inspection, when the commander asked me where I was from, I said, “Top Bunk, Sir!”. Then everyone busted up laughing, and I died a little. In my defense, he asked each Private before me which bunk they used. In my head, I was practicing my answer, and when it came time, I was ready, dammit.

I’m extremely talented at putting my foot in my mouth. This is a complaint, not a brag. I try hard to run a few scripts in my head before I speak.

If you said that to Heather, would she cry? If yes, than don’t say it, (even if it’s hilarious).

It took a while to calibrate that script, but once I got it, it was easy. My Mom gave me that script, because she knew I had zero tolerance for witnessing Heather cry. Heather also knew, and used it to her advantage, much to my amusement. I wonder if there’s a hormone produced by youngest siblings that protects them from fratricide. I think there must be. There’s no other explanation as to how so many survive to adulthood.

Heather used to get me in trouble, then taunt me over it, and I’d be thinking to myself, “She’s so adorable!” I couldn’t get angry with her for more than a second. It was like how people are with pets. Everything they do is so fucking adorable we can hardly stand it. I didn’t know any better. I’m not even sure if it’s odd for a child to be spoiled rotten by their siblings, not their parents. But Heather was that child. I think it’s probably common. Older siblings are the ones making all the sacrifices, and taking all the blame. I lost track of how many times I got punished for shit Heather did. I didn’t get upset, because I remembered how many times Steve covered for me.

By the time I was ten, Steve and I didn’t argue over the blame anymore. We pled guilty to everything, and 99.9% of the time, righteously so. The few times we weren’t guilty, we weren’t exactly innocent, either. I figure it all evens out in the end. By the time we were teenagers, my parents were ninjas at parenting teens. There was really no point in denying or justifying misbehavior. If you did it, someone saw, and they told Mom. Take the punishment, and move on. I do remember a time when I wasn’t sure whether I was guilty, but was too afraid of incriminating myself to verify. It sounds like we were little thugs, but we weren’t. We didn’t have any thug examples to follow. It’s not like they give thug lessons at school.

I’m a bit loopy. I haven’t been sleeping much. I resent losing so much time to sleep. We should have a vaccine against sleep by now. Such inefficiency when our lifespans are far too short to begin with is frustrating. We may hit critical population in my lifetime, albeit, not for long. I’m trying not to isolate to the point of disconnection. It’s hard to be mindful when I’m stretching my mind. I don’t like how vulnerable it feels to concentrate so completely. Mostly, because the feeling is purely in hindsight. I hate playing chicken with myself. Back to work.